Abnormal fluctuations in Local Map Pack rankings

[Alamdar04]

Hi, I am currently doing SEO for a local chiropractic clinic and seeing some strange fluctuations with the local map pack rankings. I am using Semrush's 'Map Rank Tracker' and attached is the screenshot of the past few days of rankings. It has been going on for about a month now, and our average rank fluctuates between 5-15. Our average rank before this started used to be around 7-8 and the client was getting good business.

I was working on the client's organic rankings for the past couple of months until they reported a huge drop in new customers coming from Google. While investigating, I switched from weekly scans to daily scans on the rank tracker and noticed this fluctuation. One day we are at 6 and the next day we are 12-13 and vice versa. I even tried taking two scans in a day (morning and evening) and both of them were very different than each other.

Not only us but almost all the competitors in our area, I see, are facing the same thing. Some are fluctuating between 3-10, some 4-13, etc.

Not sure if this is a bug or something on our part. I made no changes to the GMB in any way. And since this is happening with all our competitors too, I don't think this is due to any changes whatsoever. It has been very bad for both my client and me. He is losing business and I am losing his trust. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

I would suggest, if you haven't already, try comparing "grid" ranking reports from Semrush against another similar product like Brightlocal or Local Falcon. A couple months ago, I had panicked when one of our client's grid reports (btw not semrush) took a nose dive in areas they had always ranked well. Similar to you, I started running daily reports for about three days, with erratic differences. I then started manually checking the ranking of several of those "pins", using the latitude/longitude and quickly discovered there appeared to be a problem with the actual report. So I used a different product/solution to compare the results and the alternative report confirmed my manual findings and seemed to show an issue with my primary grid report solution. I submitted a support ticket with my evidence and they soon confirmed there was an issue, which took several days to fix.

This may not be your case, but it is better to know that you aren't dealing with faulty information.

 

[Alamdar04]

Let me try that and get back to you.

Also, how do you manually check the pins using lat/long? Thanks

 

[JS Girard]

... maybe I'm missing something here but... *squints* don't both these images show exactly the same rankings? What variation are we supposed to see here?

 

[Alamdar04]

... maybe I'm missing something here but... *squints* don't both these images show exactly the same rankings? What variation are we supposed to see here?

The sidebar on the left...